Birmingham boss hails Albion keeper’s ‘world class’ save

Birmingham City boss Gary Rowett does not think there will be a better save all season than the injury-time one which David Stockdale made to deny his side a point.

Albion won 2-1 at The Amex but Stockdale produced an outstanding stop in the fourth minute of injury-time, diving low to his right, to keep out David Davis’s skidding low 20-yard strike.

Rowett said: “You look at the one key moment in the game and Stockdale makes probably a world class save I would say right at the end. I don’t think you’ll see a better save all season and it stopped us from claiming a point.

“You could argue for our endeavours and the way we kept going away from home, we might have deserved a point.

“We know that Brighton are a good side - there’s no doubt about that and for them to be on the run that they’ve been on is a real testament to Chris and the work that they’ve done, it’s an amazing run.

“We got back into the game and, with a bit more belief in the attacking third in the first half, we could have scored more than one goal.

“In the second half, you’ve got to start well and before the goal, we made three or four poor passes or poor decisions which allows them to build a tiny bit of pressure and we concede another really poor goal.”

On Stockdale’s save, Albion boss Chris Hughton said: “That’s the margins in the game. We probably should have never got to that stage - minutes before, it looked as though we were going to go 3-1 up.

“I thought it was in and I thought it was an absolutely outstanding save. That’s the game - it was a game we should have won and we should have won more comfortably than what we did and we’re reliant on a goalkeeper to pull out an outstanding save in the last couple of minutes.”

Hughton was also full of praise for man-of-the-match Solly March and said: “Solly was outstanding. It’s very difficult for wingers to keep doing that consistently because they’re up against good players and good defenders. You get a feel when it might be your day and with Solly, you had that feeling that every time he got the ball he could do something.

“He had a really big influence on the game.”

And on matchwinner Bobby Zamora, Hughton said: “Bobby is a player who has a certain know-how. We know the things Bobby can’t do these days.

“If you look at his goal return, he’s not missing a lot of chances. It’s testament to Bobby, he’s adjusted his game as he’s got older and he uses his body very well.”

Brighton are back on top of the Championship and are now ten points ahead of sixth-placed Birmingham. On the gap to the Blues, Hughton said: “It’s massively important. We’re realistic to know that there’s a group of teams around us that are top, top teams.

“The gap is something that’s comforting but you know in this game, we’re on a non-losing streak, but, with a midweek game, you can lose three games in a week. At the moment, we’re doing a little bit more than okay.”

Hughton also confirmed that Liam Rosenior was stretchered off with a knee injury and the club are hoping it is not too bad.

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